"Fault-finding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... make a kitchen-girl of ye, and ye'd run off from her in a week. If ye'd not stay here, where ye have it all your own way, it's not long that ye'd put up wi' my lady's fault-finding; and ministers and their wives isn't much better than other folks—I've told ye before what I think of ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... said, "we have had a pleasant evening, have we not? But I need not tell you that our talk had best not be repeated. We have said not a word that is disloyal to His Majesty: but even a little fault-finding is apt to be misrepresented ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... the picture leaves nothing to be desired. The faces of the principal figures are full of that "expression to the life" in which the English are justly considered to excel, while the admirable focus of the groups, the color, and interest, are as un-English as excellent. Fault-finding in more than one or two unimportant details would be hypercriticism where so much is perfect, and it becomes our happy privilege, in this notice, to commend and to point out, to "lay" readers about Art, the manifold beauties of its technical execution. ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... According to the clowns and the supers, Malaga was squandering money; and she now appeared at the Circus wearing burnous and shawls and elegant scarfs. The Pole, it was agreed on all sides, was the best sort of man a circus-rider had ever encountered, not fault-finding nor jealous, and willing to let Malaga do ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... suddenly revealed to me the full extent of the change that had taken place in him since he had left college. As he stood facing me, almost glaring at me through his eye-glasses, I beheld a slim, nervous, fault-finding doctrinaire, incapable of understanding the world as it was, lacking the force of his pioneer ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... all comfort may be prevented by an unkind, a sour, crabbed temper of mind,—a mind that can bear with no difference of opinion or temperament. A spirit of fault-finding; an unsatisfied temper; a constant irritability; little inequalities in the look, the temper, or the manner; a brow cloudy and dissatisfied—your husband or your wife cannot tell why—will more than neutralize all the good you can do, and render ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... disorder that marked everything about the place, were not, after all, the worst features with which Matt had to deal. He soon found that his employer was a hard, grasping tyrant, while his wife was a termagant, scolding and fault-finding incessantly from morning until night. There was not an animal on the place that escaped the abuse of the master, and not even the master himself eluded the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... COLE said: That we are still so far from enfranchisement is mainly the fault of women themselves. Home talks, not Mrs. Caudle's fault-finding lectures, will do more toward convincing men of the righteousness of their demand, than all the public harangues to which they can listen. Comparatively speaking, there are few men who do not listen and heed ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... believe" Fatal rencontre "Fault-finding" Favorite amusements of slaveholders Fear, the only motive of slaves Feast for slaves Feeding insufficient Feeble infants Felonies on account of slavery " perpetrated with impunity Female hypocrite Female ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... around her a far poorer cottage than the one she had left—very bare and uncomfortable indeed, she might well have thought; but she had come through such troubles of late, in the way of hunger and weariness and cold and fear, that she was not altogether in her ordinary mood of fault-finding, and so was able to lie enjoying the thought that at length she was safe, and going to be fed and kept warm. The idea of doing any thing in return for shelter and food and clothes, did not, however, even cross ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... be done. I, therefore, hope you will watch the work in every corner of this Nation. Feel free to criticize. Tell me of instances where work can be done better, or where improper practices prevail. Neither you nor I want criticism conceived in a purely fault-finding or partisan spirit, but I am jealous of the right of every citizen to call to the attention of his or her government examples of how the public money can be more effectively spent for the benefit ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... which is nothing more than flippant fault-finding, frequently gains a cheap reputation for wisdom; and, on the other hand, an optimism, which is really the result of much reflection and experience, may be regarded as the product of a superficial spirit that has never known the deeper evils of life. But, if pessimism be true, it differs ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... way his experiences arose, the desire at the outset to see nothing that was not favorable, the slowness with which adverse impressions were formed, and the eager recognition of every truthful and noble quality that arose and remained above the fault-finding, are ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... knew, the Master did not blame him. He saw that all Nehemiah did had been done for His glory and for the good of his nation. And to the Master whom he served Nehemiah appealed. Away from the fault-finding people, he turned ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... planted area a bowling-green, and beyond the bowling-green a long terrace walk, backed by iron palisades, and commanding a view over them into the tops of the trees of the wilderness immediately adjoining. It was a good spot for fault-finding. Mr. Crawford was soon followed by Miss Bertram and Mr. Rushworth; and when, after a little time, the others began to form into parties, these three were found in busy consultation on the terrace by Edmund, Miss Crawford, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... a fine long time getting this,' the skipper declared, anxious to resume bullying. But Charlie was determined not to give him an occasion for fault-finding, and therefore he made no reply; but, as he walked back to his galley, he vowed to himself that, do what he might, the skipper should not have the satisfaction of making him miserable. Already he had come to the conclusion that the man was dishonourable, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... heard!" exclaimed Ruth, her plain little face alight with happiness. "Arline has been grumbling. You haven't any idea what a fault-finding person she is. She lectures ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... themselves on their plain speaking. An ability to put things pleasantly is really far more valuable. Even fault-finding can be pleasantly done. ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... time, and long afterwards, were habituated to the defective system of theatrical costume—had grown up with it. To them it was part of the stage as they had always known it, and they saw no reason for fault-finding. And it is conceivable that many plays were little affected by the circumstance that the actors wore court suits. It was but a shifting of the period of the story represented, a change of venue; and Romeo, in hair-powder, interested ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... cases of common occurrence, where it was not at all needed, and so will lose all the advantages that might come from a judicious use of freedom of speech. He will therefore be very much on his guard against continual fault-finding, and if his friend is always pettifogging about minute matters, and is needlessly querulous, it will give him a handle against him in more important shortcomings. Philotimus the doctor, when a patient who had abscesses on his liver showed him his sore finger, said to him, "My friend, it ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... venture to think that I have here given good proof in the matter of "spontaneous" utterances, the best, perhaps, being the one given at B. L.'s, where she complained of having done insufficient work, for her fault-finding was generally the other way round! But she has always loved to show off in that particular circle, sensing no doubt the friendly interest taken in ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... alienated from her, and the more we came to regard her as our enemy. If she really meant to be our friend after the best fashion she knew, it was at least an uncomely kind of friendship, that showed itself in constant opposition, fault-finding, and complaint. The real mistake was that we were boys. There was something in her altogether antagonistic to the boy-nature. You would have thought that to be a boy was in her eyes to be something wrong to begin ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... band were implicated in the escape, all were alike ready to aver that, during the night, they had witnessed very strange sights and heard very strange sounds. When they carried back this report, the good-natured De Soto, convinced that fretting and fault-finding would do no good, appeased their alarm by ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... it to pieces. Nothing is to be gained by it, but everything to be lost. Long-continued grief at any loss will do the same. Each brings its own peculiar type of ailment. An inordinate love of gain, a close-fisted, hoarding disposition will have kindred effects. Anger, jealousy, malice, continual fault-finding, lust, has each its own peculiar corroding, ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... alone. Ellen had coloured, but William's words did not hit very sore. Since John's talk with her about the matter referred to she had thought of it humbly and wisely; it is only pride that makes such fault-finding very hard to bear. She was very sorry, however, that they had fallen out again, and that her own passion, as she feared, had been the cause. A few tears had to be wiped away before she could see exactly how the old tree stood; then, taking ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... its words. Lacking the accent of pity, the accusations of the preacher will degenerate into scolding, and of all scolds the pulpit scold is the most objectionable. Without a pitiful heart his exposure of human nature will become mere fault-finding, and a fault-finding ministry is a ministry of desolation. Again, without a pitiful heart the preacher's utterance of the divine judgment will be but more or less terrifying threats, and the pulpit is not ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... vertical heat, the hail of orders from the captain's trumpet continued, accompanied by reprimands and fault-finding all round, until the crew were nearly in a state of mutiny, and it was not until late in the evening that he showed ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... faintly. She was forty-five, and looked ten years older. She was a tired, worn out, faded little woman, drained of her youth and vitality by the hourly exactions of the fault-finding invalid mother whom she had so recently laid away in the church-yard with unselfish filial tears. But there was something attractive in the sweet patience of her thin face, and the look in her brown eyes as she turned them on her faithful ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... mutual complaints, as if everybody were against everybody, agreeing in nothing but in appealing to the elder sister. First, there was Alda's story. Never had there been such a miserable time—with Geraldine interfering, fussy, fretful, fault-finding; Clement intolerable in primness and conceit, only making the children worse when he pretended to keep them in order, and making such a fuss about Geraldine, when nothing ailed her but change of weather, incurring the expense of the Dearport doctor, and bringing down the Sister upon ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dare to be even near to late at one of Mrs. Rittenhouse Smith's dinners), and then, standing beside the doorway, with Mr. Hutchinson Port, marshalled her company in to dinner. It was a comfort to her to know that for once in his fault-finding life Mr. Port would be compelled, since he was to be seated beside his hostess, to eat ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... see them painting, modelling, or drawing large cartoons in charcoal, while old Bertoldo passes from easel to easel, criticising and fault-finding, detailing for the hundredth time Donatello's maxims, and moving on, heedless or deaf to the irreverent jokes of his ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... only of pictures but of literature itself, and the critical spirit is a good one to cultivate, if it is not allowed to fall into captious fault-finding. On the whole, however, it is far better to point out the good things in a picture than to call attention to poor execution or poor conception. Leave criticism generally to those infrequent cases in which the artist has actually blundered because he has not read the selection closely ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... howdy, honey," he remarked in a fault-finding tone. "Dar ain' no manners dese days, nohow. Dey ain' no manners en dey ain' no nuttin'. De niggers, dey is gwine plum outer dey heads, en de po' white trash dey's gwine plum outer ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... Guardian is a writer of different make, and entitled every way to the most respectful attention. His fault-finding, which is invariably courteous, is mainly confined to the deficiencies of The ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... glancing over his spectacles to see if she by any possibility could be amusing herself at his expense—good, old, fussy, fault-finding Veritas; but indeed Francesca's eyes were so soft and lovely and honest that the more he looked at her, the less he could do her the injustice ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to poor Nelly, pining under continual chilling indifference and fault-finding. While she was hesitating, her mistress, hearing a strange voice in the kitchen, came down in wrath to dismiss the intruder, who rose instantly at the sound of her harsh voice. "I go, signora," he said in his foreign English, "and this girl goes with me. You give ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... Does not every thing turn out just as you like it? Moreover there is an indefinable something about the play that puts us in a receptive frame of mind; that opens the heart, soothes away all querulousness and fault-finding, and makes us easy and apt to be pleased. Thus the Poet here disposes us to like things as they come, and at the same time takes care that they shall come as we like. The whole play indeed is as ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... portions of white-work; learning to read and write in the worst manner; occasionally wearing a collar, and learning the notes on the spinnet. These acquirements, accompanied with a great deal of lecturing and fault-finding, sufficed for the first fifteen years; when the two next, passed at a provincial boarding-school, were supposed to impart every graceful accomplishment to which women ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... out signals of approaching low spirits. He had kicked his own dog on the porch of the Occidental Hotel, and refused to apologise. He had become capricious and fault-finding in conversation. While strolling about he reached often for twigs of mesquite and chewed the leaves fiercely. That was always an ominous act. Another symptom alarming to those who were familiar with the ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... aggressive. He was a man of marvellous keenness of perception; too frequently did this manifest itself in a sulky suspicion, a harshness of judgment, and a bitterness of speech. We say this in no spirit of fault-finding, but merely point it out as a natural consequence of a wretched and leisureless existence. This was the education of circumstances—hard enough in Burns's case; and if it developed in him certain sterling qualities, gave him an insight into and a ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... Latin, when he found that, stumble as he liked, Theo did not correct him nor say a word. He sat with his head propped on his hands, and when Geoff paused said, "Go on." Either this meant something very awful in the shape of fault-finding when the culprit had come to the end of the lesson, the exemption now meaning dire retribution then, or else—there was something very wrong with Theo. Geoff's little sharp eyes seemed to leap out of their sockets with ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... servants, that we should not lightly give them up when even tolerable. My advice is, bear a little with them, and do not be too sharp; pass by little things with gentle reprehension: now and then a little serious advice does far more good than sudden fault-finding when the offence justly occurs. If my wife had not acted in this way, we must have been continually changing, and nothing can be more disagreeable in a family, and, indeed, it ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... charge, by a treatment of from three to six years' duration. The attainment of so large a measure of success has been questioned by some who have visited the Hospital on the Abendberg; and while a part of these critics were undoubtedly actuated by a jealous and fault-finding disposition, it is not impossible that the enthusiasm of the philanthropist may have led him to regard the acquirements of his pupils as beyond what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... United States the Territory of Alaska." The prince governor then surrendered his insignia of office, and the thing was done. In a few months' time fifty ships and four hundred people had deserted Sitka; and to-day but three families of pure Russian blood remain. Perhaps the fault-finding which followed this remarkable acquisition of territory on the part of the United States government—both the acquisition and the fault-finding were on the part of our government—had best be left unmentioned. Now that the glorious ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... He is not to blame for that, and lying awake nights doesn't help matters, but that is Jon's disposition. He's tired to death of all the work for the Council and the everlasting fault-finding. He has had to neglect his own farm since he took up these public duties—and nothing for his time and trouble. Now this is too much. He is dead tired of it all, and so am I. In fact, I know it was worry ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... will be a mortal sin if you scold us for coming to you without being summoned by your majesty. This is through—out all Prussia a festal day, and no one should desecrate it by scolding or fault-finding—not even the king." ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... the obstacles which the student of human affairs must surmount. Yet we may hope that it will become increasingly clear that the repression of criticism (even if such criticism becomes fault-finding and takes the form of a denunciation of existing habits and institutions) is inexpedient and inappropriate to the situation in which the world finds itself. Let us assume that such people as really advocate lawlessness and disorder should be carefully watched and checked if they promise ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... work she hardly knew how, though her father was dry and fault-finding all the time. Her eyes were so full of tears when she was released that she hardly saw where she was going, and nearly ran against her aunt, who had just walked into the hall. Mrs. Egremont was too prudent a woman ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nowhere any precedent. Why, it deafens, it appals, it submerges you in an uproarious sea of fault-finding; and in a word, you might as profitably oppose a hurricane. Yet you want her back! Now assuredly, Jurgen, I do not think very highly of your wisdom, but by your bravery ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... its attractive guise. Without knowing herself romantic, Joanna was apt to quarrel in her own mind with cleverer girls, accomplished girls, pleasant girls, even good girls, sensible women, business women, nay religious women, until she feared she must be fault-finding, satirical, sour—as her sisters protested at intervals. Joanna, sour? Joanna, so charitable and sympathizing? Take comfort, Joanna; the spirit is willing, though the flesh ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... a certain mother with several unconverted children. She was a fretting, chafing woman, and by her impatience, fault-finding, and nagging she fretted and vexed the whole family. When she got the blessing she became so even in her disposition that she was kept in such 'perfect peace' that, by the power of the Holy Ghost, the domestic circle became ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... virtue of compassion without any air of pitying condescension or superiority. By all means help each other to mend, to improve, to reach after higher, noble things, but don't do it by the way of personal criticism, advice, remonstrance, fault-finding, worrying. If you do, you'll do far more harm than good in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred. Every human being instinctively, in such position, consciously or unconsciously, places himself in the attitude of saying: "I am what I am! Now recognize that, and leave me alone! My ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... were equally distinct as to character. Olympias was delicate, with a failing of delicate people—a disposition to complaining and fault-finding. Elaine was full of fun, ready to barter any advantage in the future for enjoyment in the present. Diana was caustic, proud of her high connections, which were a shade above those of her companions, and inclined to be scornful towards everything not immediately patent to her comprehension. ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... go on a little picnic, and her plan had been enthusiastically adopted. As she had said, the affair of the diamonds was getting on the nerves of them all. They had stuck too close to the house, and there was a "jumpiness" and fault-finding spirit seldom ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... day I heard a man of God say: "We cannot bridle the tongues of the people among whom we live: they will talk"; and by talk he meant gossip and criticism and fault-finding. ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... have a right to ask such questions as these, if we do not ask them out of any carping, fault-finding spirit, trying to pick holes in the Bible, from which God defend us and all Christian men. If we ask such questions in faith and reverence—that is, believing and taking for granted that the Bible is right, and respecting it, as the Book of books, in which our own forefathers and all ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... practically the same, nor was there anything to change the situation from a financial point of view. The stockholders had voted themselves into a mood of temporary quiescence, and the opera pursued its serious course unhampered by more than the ordinary fault-finding on the part of the representations of careless amusement seekers in the public press, and the grumbling in the boxes because the musical director and stage manager persisted in darkening the audience room in order to heighten the ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... not what Rosalie minded most. There was fault-finding from morning till night, without one single word of praise and encouragement; there were unkind, cruel words, and even blows to bear. But what was worse than all these was that the child had to wait upon many of the rude and noisy and wicked lodgers, and heard and saw much, very ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... you're in a fault-finding humour this morning," said Bertram as they walked towards the camp. "Let's enjoy ourselves in spite of circumstances. Do you know, I hold it to be exceedingly wise as well as philosophical, to make the best of ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... adequate protection against these monsters of the deep?" asked Mr. Hardley in a fault-finding voice. "I should think you would have taken ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... being transplanted to Europe, dissatisfied with the climate, displeased with the soil, discontented with its associates. It struck me as very much like a good number of excellent and very useful souls with whom I am acquainted, who never take a cheerful view of life, are always fault-finding, hole-picking, worry-discovering, eminently good in their place as febrifuges, but not calculated ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... Bob, and ordered Helen to leave you alone. Now I see you're the better man and I'm a confounded, fault-finding prig. But you're not vindictive, and we'll let that go. The trouble is, I'm obstinate and sure of what I can do—at least, I was, though my confidence has got shaken recently. Well, I think I can finish this contract, but don't know. ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... had a Socratic contempt for this sort of fault-finding. It was answer enough to say, "It pays. The people like it or they wouldn't buy it. It commands the best talent in the market and can afford to pay for it; even clergymen like to appear in its columns—they say it's a providential chance to reach the masses. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... thought Owen a muff, and Owen thought him a reprobate. To his own blunt and reserved nature, the expressions, so charming to poor Miss Charlecote, had been painfully distasteful. Sentiment, profession, obtrusive reverence, and fault-finding scruples had revolted him, even when he thought it a proof of his own irreligion to be provoked. Afterwards, when both were schoolboys, Robert had yearly increased in conscientiousness under good discipline and training, but, in their holiday meetings, had found Owen's standard receding ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... enjoy the highest freedom in my chains, proclaiming to King Demos the weakness and instability of his power, because he shall not himself ascend the throne without the help of tyrants and shall be driven off by a yet more mighty and righteous Lord. And even for this Lord I am still a critical and fault-finding subject, but I think these are ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... daughter was surely the most fitting companion for a widowed mother. The house Mrs. Meadowsweet lived in fitted her requirements to perfection. In short, she was fat and comfortable, both in mind and body; she never fretted, she never worried; she was not rasping and disagreeable; she was not fault-finding. If her nature lacked depth, it certainly did not lack affection, generosity, and a true spirit of kindliness. If she were a little too well pleased with herself, she was also well pleased with her neighbors. She was ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... steep mountain-slope, unseating his rider and making for the mountain-top like the all-possessed. His rider takes the sensible course of immediately pursuing the pony, instead of wasting time in unprofitable fault-finding with me. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... about her aunt's constant fault-finding; there was something in her grief more bitter even than the tears she shed for her mother; it seemed to the girl that day by day she was becoming more and more clumsy and stupid; she broke the crockery, and even the furniture; she spoiled her frocks; and, worst of all, she had more than once met ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... deal with. There was a kinsman of his hight Thorbiorn, and bynamed Tardy; he was a sailor, and the namesakes were partners. He was ever at Thorodstead, and was thought to better Thorbiorn but little. He was a fault-finding fellow, and went about jeering ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... learned of the new prodigy: for reasons which will be treated later, the growth of the Sterne cult in Germany was delayed, so that Yorick was in the plenitude of his German fame when England had begun to look askance at him with critical, fault-finding eye, or to accord him the ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... and through our arrival in this apartment, where, as Robert says, we are as pleased as if we had never lived in a house before. Well, I assure you the rooms are perfect in comfort and convenience; not large, but warm, and of a number and arrangement which exclude all fault-finding. Clean, carpeted; no glitter, nothing very pretty—not even the clocks—but with sofas and chairs suited to lollers such as one of us, and altogether what I mean whenever I say that an 'apartment' on the Continent is twenty times ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... a man as cool, skilful, prompt, and daring as himself. The traces that have come down to us indicate in Ribaut one far above the common stamp,—"a distinguished man, of many high qualities," as even the fault-finding Le Moyne calls him; devout after the best spirit of the Reform; and with a human ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... the inference that they contain really important, but unwelcome truths. Negatives multiplied into each other change their sign and become positives. Hostile criticisms meeting together are often equivalent to praise, and the square of fault-finding turns out to be ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of Hamilton, the Earl of Warwick, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges), yet to us, reading history in the perspective of three hundred years, the disagreeable impression of Weston's letter outweighs the satisfaction for the patent. When the Fortune sailed away it was like the departure of a rich, fault-finding aunt, who suddenly descends upon a household of poor relations, bringing presents, to be sure, but with such cutting disapproval on her lips that it mars the entire pleasure ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... little offended with Phillis's logical fault-finding with my friend; and I determined ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... sphere of their sympathies. The mainspring of life—love—grows slowly rusty for want of use, and from some hearts that were once true fountains of joy to those around them, the living water almost ceases to flow. Criticism, and fault-finding, and censoriousness too often take the place of generous labour for the welfare of the world. This may, no doubt, arise in part from the natural desire that others should profit by our past experiences, which renders us the ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... hasn't been a Christmas present or a funeral wreath bought in this house since I came into it I didn't pick out and pay for out of my own pocket. And all the thanks I get for it is this perpetual fault-finding, and I wish I was dead like this poor saint here. She spent her life slaving for you. And what thanks did she get for it? Oh, you ought to go down on your knees, ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... trying to teach nursery matters to the mothers in Israel. It would not become to me to criticise you, gentlemen—who are nearly all my elders—and my superiors, in this thing—if I should here and there seem to do it, I trust it will in most cases be more in a spirit of admiration than fault-finding; indeed if this finest of the fine arts had everywhere received the attention, the encouragement, and conscientious practice and development which this club has devoted to it, I should not need to utter this lament, or shred a single tear. I do not say this to flatter: I say it in a spirit of ...
— On the Decay of the Art of Lying • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... greatly: some were quiet with the children and considerate with the teachers; others vindicated their authority by unnecessary fault-finding, upsetting the teachers and alarming the children. In the days of our voluntary school I have seen a room full of children in a state of nervous tension, and the mistress and pupil-teachers in tears, as the result of inconsiderate reprimands and irritable speech. My sympathies have been strongly ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... if he is so certain that we shall be out of the Silver City in that time there can be no reason for any fault-finding." ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... WILL have my fault-finding at last! So you can decypher my utterest hieroglyphic? Now droop the eyes while I triumph: the plains cower, cower beneath the mountains their masters—and the Priests stomp over the clay ridges, (a palpable ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... he mounted Firelock and started off, followed by no regrets from his mother or sisters, for since Nellie went away he had been intolerably cross and fault-finding. He found a servant in the door, so he was saved the trouble of ringing, and entering unannounced, walked noiselessly to the parlor-door, which was ajar. 'Lena, as usual, sat at the piano, wholly absorbed, while over her bent Mabel, who was assisting her in the lesson, speaking encouragingly, ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... this time on to do the work of apostles, had been with the Lord in nearly all of his public ministry and life. They knew how he had overcome in temptation; how victorious he had been in his conflicts with the accusing and fault-finding Jews, and how patient and forgiving he had been in his trial before Pilate and the high priest. They were witnesses of the purity of his character and life; of the disinterested love he bore toward all within his reach; of the good will toward men manifested by his going ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... next week," she said, slowly. "I hoped—I wanted so much to send Lucy away with—I can't express it—a little bit higher ideals than any she has known before. I thought we were succeeding; she has seemed more considerate and less fault-finding." ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... you would find them very vulnerable to criticism, which nowadays has become a synonym for fault-finding; at least this carping proclivity characterizes the class who seem desirous only of earning reputation as literary Jeffreys. I am aware, sir, that ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... whose turn it was to take a music-lesson reported Signor Foresti as unbearable, testy, and fault-finding. ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... said, "I think there has been too much fault-finding and dictation from the very day of the child's birth till now, and if God takes it, as he may, I shall think it a judgment upon you. First you were half vexed with Katy because it was not a boy, as if she were to blame; ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... bring out the idea of 'pinning the chrysanthemums in the hair' so thoroughly that one couldn't get a loop hole for fault-finding." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... mistakes that masquerade as marriage—women who have no virtues save one tied like millstones to some of earth's noblemen; great-hearted and great-souled women mated with clods. I see people insanely jealous of one another, suspicious, fault-finding, malicious; covertly sending barbed shafts to one another through the medium of general conversation. As if love were ever to be held captive, or be won by cords and chains! As if the freest thing on earth would for ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... flattering his vanity; every good deed had a base motive in his eyes, or was poisoned by the thought that it had not been done for itself, but for an uncertain something which came over him when the Queen spoke to him or touched his hand. It is not only inactive men who grow morbid and fault-finding with themselves; for the wide breach between the ideal good and the poor accomplishment holds as much that can disappoint the heart as the mean little ditch between thought and deed, wherein so many weak good men lie stuck ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... to work my vessel," said the Chilian, who had grown surly in consequence of the fault-finding, "I'd leave your negroes here, and cut loose from the whole business. I've had ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... Hendricks lit his pipe and gave vent to his feelings, as follows: 'If I had had a four-year-old club at the supper table to-night, I felt so boiling mad that I would have knocked hell out of him. To hear him go on a nagging and fault-finding with that little woman of his. There she has been a-working hard all day, set three good meals, doing the churning and all the housework besides; and all she gets for her patient labor is a growl.' 'Yes,' said another man, 'she has been working like a slave all the week and to-morrow is Sunday, ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... father was an invalid, and at the present time was in the South, seeking to recuperate his failing health, and Mrs. Jordan was with him as his nurse. They had left Frank in charge of the aunt, who was a miserly, fault-finding person, and for nearly a month the lad had not enjoyed life ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... Concern," promising safe conduct to any person or persons authorized to present "any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery." Nothing came of the proposed negotiations, except to stop for a time the mischievous fault-finding; which was, of course, the result aimed at by Lincoln. The act was severely condemned by many Republicans; but Lincoln only said, "It is hardly fair for them to say the letter amounts to nothing. It will shut up Greeley, and satisfy ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... rang out on market mornings and mistresses were not above visiting the long, clean spaces, though there was much fault-finding about the dearness of things, and Mrs. Adams complained of the loneliness of Bush Hill, though she was afterward to be comforted by being the first lady of the land at Washington, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... At length the baron, leaning upon his daughter's arm and on a staff, ventured out into the open air, to sit silently in the shadow cast by the castle walls, or to listen for every trifle which might afford possible scope for fault-finding. At these times his dependents in general would go a good deal out of their way to avoid him, and as Anton never did this, he was not unfrequently their scapegoat. Every day the baron had to hear, in return for his cross-questioning, "Mr. Wohlfart ordered this," or "Mr. Wohlfart forbade ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Prominence always brings envy, fault-finding, hostility. From this Grant did not escape. The more brilliant and uniform his successes, the more clamorous a certain class of people became. The more strictly he attended to his soldierly duties, the more busily certain people ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... also a form of justice, is the duty enjoined by St. Paul of forming just judgments of our fellow-men. If we would avoid petty fault-finding and high-minded contempt, we must dismiss all prejudice and passion. The two qualities requisite for proper judgment are knowledge and sympathy. Goethe has a fine couplet to the effect that 'it is safe in every case to appeal to the man who knows.'[22] But to understanding must be ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... had determined to give Lancy no chance for fault-finding, but to have as little to do with him ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... have been given by the spoken word, the tone of voice, the smile, and the personal presence. So in our writing we must avoid all that which even borders on complaint, or which may seem critical or fault-finding to ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... possible from this agreement between painting and poetry. At one time they confine poetry within the narrow limits of painting, and at another allow painting to fill the whole wide sphere of poetry.... This fault-finding criticism has partially misled the virtuosos themselves. In poetry a fondness for description, and in painting a fancy for allegory, has arisen from the desire to make the one a speaking picture without really knowing what it can and ought to paint, and the other a dumb poem without ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... anxious care, detecting in every little fault the germ of some evil tendency in the future, while the other enticed them into follies, it is true, but opened their minds to joyous impressions, and attained more by kisses and kind words than Selene could by fault-finding. The children would call Selene when they wanted her, but would fly to Arsinoe as soon as they saw her. Their hearts were hers, and Selene felt this bitterly; it seemed to her to be unjust, for she saw clearly that her sister could reap, from mere frivolous play in her idle hours, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... with assurance and on equal terms; for his most sincere friends may yet turn into admiring flatterers, unstable in their bearing, now constrained under the moral spell of his majesty, now, under the conviction of their own rights, fault-finding and discontented. ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... I could see enough in America to find fault with, through the creaks of the drawer, and if an American, I might have indulged a little in the same way myself, for I am not one of those who think fault-finding belongs properly to the stranger, and not to the native. It is the proper office of the latter, as it is his duty to amend these faults; the traveler being bound in justice to look at the good as well as the evil. But, according to my companions, there was ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... like her more and more. In a house where Bruce lived it was certainly a wonderful help to have a third person often present—if it was the right person. The absurd irritations and scenes of fault-finding that she had become inured to, but which were always trying, were now shorter, milder, or given up altogether. Bruce's temper was perennially good, and got better. Then the constant illnesses that he used to suffer from—he was unable to pass the military examination and go to ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... people who always know their own mind and do their very best, she did not like to be found fault with; she secretly found such fault with herself that she thought that was fault-finding enough. Also, she was somewhat rigid in sticking to the ways she thought were right, and in the selection of these ways she was not always quite infallible. On a les defauts de ses qualites; and a little obstinacy is often the fault of a very ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... three. The thing that seems to me—and I am here only stating a personal view—both possible and desirable, is to live as far as we can by the law of beauty, not to submit to anything by which our soul is shamed and insulted, not to be drawn into strife, not to fall into miserable fault-finding, not to allow ourselves to be fretted and fussed and agitated by the cares of life; but to say clearly to ourselves, "that is a petty, base, mean thought, and I will not entertain it; this is a generous and kind and gracious thought, and I will ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... come to have you preaching at me. Mamma, will you speak to them?" he burst out. "I hate this life—nothing but fault-finding as soon as I show my face. I wish I were out of it, I do! I'd rather be the poorest ploughboy in the country than lead this miserable life in ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... held his breath, but the old lady merely shook her head thoughtfully. "It was a disagreeable voice when his wife used to hear it," she said at last. "Always fault-finding, when it wasn't swearing." ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... universe will not sweeten it. There is such a thing as making vinegar of molasses, but I never heard of making molasses of vinegar. Do you wish to know the turning process? Grumbling—everlasting fault-finding—at breakfast, dinner, and supper, the same old tune. I don't see how the man who boards can endure it; he is obliged to swallow his food without complaint. The landlady at the head of the table is a very different-looking individual from the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of a science. In his monographic works also, he endeavours to examine impartially the history of dogma, and to acquire the historic stand-point between the estimate of the orthodox dogmatists and that of Gottfried Arnold Mosheim, averse to all fault-finding and polemic, and abhorring theological crudity as much as pietistic narrowness and undevout Illuminism, aimed at an actual correct knowledge of history, in accordance with the principle of Leibnitz, that the valuable elements which ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... were two empty rooms in the farmhouse, the young farmer's wife, who disliked Mary, gave her the most miserable apartment in the house; beside which, she ill-treated her in every possible way, and loaded her with abuse and fault-finding from morning to night. According to her, Mary did not work enough and did not know how to do anything as it ought to be done. In short, she made it very plain to the poor orphan that she was despised and ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... chances of fault-finding and of theft. Knowing this to be true, I most earnestly recommend the sending of parcels. True, a large proportion of them are not received, but those that are represent the one salvation of the prisoner-of-war in German hands. So terribly true is this that when we began to receive ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... and again Mr. Harby would swoop down to examine exercise books. For a whole hour, he would be going round the class, taking book after book, comparing page after page, whilst Ursula stood aside for all the remarks and fault-finding to be pointed at her through the scholars. It was true, since she had come, the composition books had grown more and more untidy, disorderly, filthy. Mr. Harby pointed to the pages done before her regime, and to those done after, and fell into ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... happier than you. His confession betrays his weakness of character just as your repining and fault-finding ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... it out." It's so very plain.' Then a little hastily, as if afraid of having said something that sounded like impious fault-finding, 'Anybody's alarming who is so—so much talked about, and ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... to have things dragged into consciousness. Only out of consideration for her he listened. And there was a kind of bristling rousedness in the room. The cat got up and stretching itself, went uneasily to the door. Mrs. Brangwen was silent, she seemed ominous. Anna could not go on with her fault-finding, her criticism, her expression of dissatisfactions. She felt even her father against her. He had a strong, dark bond with her mother, a potent intimacy that existed inarticulate and wild, following its own course, and savage ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... tried his temper. He knew that they disliked his intimacy with artists and scientific people, but he was not afraid of his parish, and meant that his parish should be a little afraid of him. He preferred to give them some cause of fault-finding in order to keep them awake. His greatest annoyance came from another side. If such gossip should reach Esther's ears, it would go far towards driving her beyond his control, and he knew that even without this additional alarm, it was with the greatest difficulty he could ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... precious good care to keep in the rear of our officers, amongst whom was Lieutenant Robinson, whose liver must have been particularly out of sorts that morning, for he was in a grumpier and more fault-finding ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... two good bears to have in every home, in order to keep peace in the family. Grin and bear it, is another good one. Impatience, scolding and fault-finding are three black bears, that make every one feel badly and look ugly. Don't ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... solely or most naturally, in Friendship of which utility is the motive: for they who are friends by reason of goodness, are eager to do kindnesses to one another because this is a natural result of goodness and Friendship; and when men are vying with each other for this End there can be no fault-finding nor contention: since no one is annoyed at one who entertains for him the sentiment of Friendship and does kindnesses to him, but if of a refined mind he requites him with kind actions. And suppose that one of the two exceeds the other, yet as he is attaining his object he will not find ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... discharged from half a dozen places he had become a good workman, and henceforth had no trouble about retaining any situation as long as he refrained from beer and restrained his temper; but at the slightest fault-finding on the part of the master he would fly into a passion and throw up the situation, and this, especially, if he suspected that anything had leaked out about ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... for a moment, seeing by the faces around him that Joan had put into words what the others felt, then he pulled his complacency together and fell to fault-finding ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... been gone through with, and where negative or at best tardy results took the place of the brilliant results that might have been obtained, had the cases been sent earlier. I do not mention this in a fault-finding spirit; to do so would be unjust. The remedy under consideration has up to the present time been too little known, the indications for its employment—in the absence of statistics—on too uncertain a basis, to expect from any but specialists the early realization ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... waited to walk over with them, was in a fault-finding state of mind. It developed that he could not attend the meeting in the parlor; his superior had ordered that he ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... I had tried my best (according to my lights, which it had not occurred to me to doubt), but it never entered my cranium that he had tried, too. I looked upon the outward appearance—my immaculate appearance, met by fault-finding or indifference I ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... disclosed, but we know that W.E. Aytoun asked permission of the proprietor to review Tennyson's Maud. (See Mrs. Oliphant's William Blackwood and his Sons.) The publication of the Idylls of the King (1859), turned the tide more strongly than before in Tennyson's favor, and subsequent fault-finding on the part of the critics was confined ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... run away with his brother's wife, life at home had been hard for little Eric. His mother and Olaf both suspected him of complicity. Mrs. Ericson was harsh and fault-finding, constantly wounding the boy's pride; and Olaf was always ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... weeks after her aunt's departure were very trying ones to Dexie. There seemed much fault-finding that was really unnecessary, but Dexie honestly tried to do her best. She could see her own failures as well as her successes, and when she found that much of Nancy's ill-temper was due to Gussie's interference in the kitchen, she laid ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... at the outset of his career, as commander of the Confederate army, saved the capital by a blow at the enemy as sudden as it was resistless. The class of persons who are never satisfied, and delight in fault-finding under all circumstances, declared that a great general would have crushed the enemy on their retreat; these certainly were in a minority; the people at large greeted Lee as the author of a great deliverance worked out for them, and, on his return to Richmond, he was received ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... held a fruitless interview with a committee of Congress, tried to bribe and intrigue, found that their own army had been already ordered to evacuate Philadelphia without their knowledge, and finally gave up their task in angry despair, and returned to England to join in the chorus of fault-finding which was beginning to sound very loud ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... qualifications, commits an error, the wretched effects of which will be experienced through life. When this outward beauty loses its charm and passes away, as it will in a brief space of time, what has he left? A cross-grained, ill-natured, fault-finding, petulant, selfish wife, who will prove a "thorn in his side," during all his days, rather than ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... his outlook and hope all this time, who shall tell! He never grumbled, never showed sign of pain or unwillingness, gave his mistress no reason for fault-finding. She found it hard even to discover a pretext. She seemed always ready to strike him, but was probably afraid to do so without provocation her husband would count sufficient. Clare never showed discomfort, never even sighed except he were alone. Chequered ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... to particular directions: Do not entertain those who are traveling with you by constant complaints of the dust or the heat or the cold. The others are probably as much annoyed by these things as you are, and fault-finding will only make them the more unpleasant to all. Be careful what you say about those near you, as a thoughtless remark to a friend in too loud a tone may cause a real heartache. Many a weary mother has been pained by hearing complaints of a fretful child, whose crying ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... and affliction had left the marks of age. The years intervening since she had left her home, had, in some degree, softened the opposition to her unsanctioned marriage with George. The more Mrs. B. had about her, the more ener- getic seemed her directing capabilities, and her fault-finding propensities. Her own, she had full power over; and Jane after vain endeavors, be- came disgusted, weary, and perplexed, and de- cided that, though her mother might suffer, she could not endure her home. They followed Jack to ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... white folks. The psalmist, addressing his Maker, says, "Thy gentleness hath made me great." It is a mighty lever; it moves the world; it moved it before Archimedes; it moves it still; but peevishness, fault-finding, scolding, cursing, premature censure, haughty and assuming ways, sullenness, ill-temper, whether in the field, the kitchen, the nursery, or parlor, will legitimately result in thriftlessness, revolt, departure, and contempt for white people! ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... usual, serve it. The girls were not needed. But Pa always made it impossible for them to be idle and comfortable over their own meal. If he did not actually ask them to fetch butter or water, or if he could find no reasonable excuse for fault-finding, he would surely introduce some dangerous topic; lure them into admissions, stand ready to pursue any clue. He did not like to see young girls care-free and contented; time enough for that later on! And as years robbed him of actual ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... so necessary for the protection and safety of the colony, involving as it did some expense, was by no means satisfactory to the Company of Associates. [86] Their general fault-finding and chronic discontent led the Duke de Montmorency to adopt heroic measures to silence their complaints. In the spring of 1621, he summarily dissolved the association of merchants, which he denominated the "Company of ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... authority was still too feebly constituted, and even too much disputed in a portion of the kingdom, to allow him to put it to such a test; and honest and sensible patriots had been of the same opinion D'Aubigne himself, the most independent and fault-finding spirit amongst his contemporaries, expressly says, "The troubles which were not yet extinguished in France did not admit of a larger convocation; the hearts of the people were not yet subdued and kneaded to obedience, as ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... easy to see; but boy as he is, he is too much of a man to speak of it. He exposed himself to the sun too much yesterday, but since it came of his earnest desire to learn, and to make this journey as useful as the opportunities will allow, no one seeks to discourage him by fault-finding. We missed him an hour from the camp, and then found him some distance away, by the edge of a brook, and with no umbrella to protect him from the fierce sun. If he had been used to going without his umbrella, it would have been well enough, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... continued Juliana Andreevna, "everybody should stay on one spot, turn his head neither to right nor left, and never exchange a word with his neighbours. She is a past mistress in fault-finding; nevertheless she and Tiet Nikonich are inseparable, he spends his days and ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... she ought to make some atonement for her past sin, even though she was never to see her husband again, and with this end in view she determined to cure herself of the habit of scolding and fault-finding about which poor ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... planned a Pantisocracy where all the virtues were to thrive. Lamb did something far more difficult: he played cribbage every night with his imbecile father, whose constant stream of querulous talk and fault-finding might well have goaded a far stronger man ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... however, from the way Clayton neglected the mistakes of the pets of his own eleven, and his constant and petty fault-finding with the three Lakerimmers, that he was determined to keep them from the varsity, even if he had to keep second-rate players on the team, and even if he imperiled the ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... their father to follow the footsteps of their husband,—Rachel and her offspring are the first objects of the care, as of the affection, of the patriarch. Yet we find Rachel, the loved and indulged wife, more murmuring, more repining, more fault-finding than Leah. By sorrow and trial, Leah may have learned submission; and the dearest earthly hopes disappointed—all her affections as a wife crushed and despised—in her hour of grief, and in the desolation of ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... and unjust complaints, and epileptics invariably charge some one with having injured them while they have been unconscious during an attack. Then, too, living at home, they are often dangerous to younger members of a family, and they are fault-finding, exacting, and irritable generally. The seizures frequently come on without warning, and the patient drops where he stands, often injuring himself severely. The last annual report of the Craig Colony records more than four hundred injuries within the year to patients during seizures ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... better and worse, since here chance and speciality have received authority from the Idea to exercise their monstrous power; much, therefore, in particular aspects of the grand phenomenon, might be criticized. This subjective fault-finding—which, however, only keeps in view the individual and its deficiency, without taking notice of Reason pervading the whole—is easy; and inasmuch as it asserts an excellent intention with regard to the good of the whole, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... eyes with surprise; here was this annoying formality again, which Gifford's fault-finding seemed to have banished. "Let you write?" she said impatiently. "Why, you know I depended on your writing, Giff, and you must tell me everything you can think of. What's the good of having a friend in Lockhaven, if ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... conciliatory, and thoroughly opposed to any act of war. Under such circumstances it was rather an exhibition of independence and courage that Lincoln reached the conclusion of relieving the fort at all, than it was a cause of fault-finding that he did not come to the conclusion sooner. He could not know in March how the people were going to feel after the 13th of April; in fact, if they had fancied that he was provoking hostilities, their feeling might ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... croaking which caused the reverses of the army of the Potomac—sheer grumbling. Now the truth is coming out, and we are beginning to see the disadvantages of eternal fault-finding. The truth is that the war in the Crimea was much worse conducted than this of ours has been—even as regards swindling by contracts—and it was so with every other war. We ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... provocations and disappointment. Now, the tendency of every sensitive mind, when thwarted in its wishes, is, to complain and find fault, and that often in tones of fretfulness or anger. But there are few domestics, who have not heard enough of the Bible, to know that angry or fretful fault-finding, from the mistress of a family, when her work is not done to suit her, is not in agreement with the precepts of Christ. They notice and feel the inconsistency; and every woman, when she gives way to feelings of ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... the grace to feel a passing emotion of gratitude to this kind benefactor, and shame that she herself had been so ready with fault-finding ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... dare to believe, eventually be established. But the men don't go over the top to put money in the Colonel's pocket, and little good is done by exploiting these loose analogies and putting on a too easy air of optimism in the face of desperately serious and complex problems. But enough of fault-finding, which is a poor reward for the serious and generous labours of public-spirited men and women. After all, what one reader calls timidity of outlook another may care to praise as prudence. Here you will find an abundance of safe analysis, wise comment and constructive suggestion ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... looking wisely into the gray sky and noting the direction of the wind, the latter replied that he thought the shower would probably last about six months, an opinion that of course disgusted the fault-finding Briton with the "blawsted country," though in fact it is but little if at all wetter or cloudier than ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... (Pitt) would do so himself on some fit occasion. Malmesbury and Canning did their utmost to spur him on to a more decided opposition; and the latter wrote him a letter of eight pages "too admonitory and too fault-finding for even Pitt's very good humoured mind to bear."[648] Pitt replied by silence. In vain did friends tell him that Ministers had assured the King of his intention to bring forward Catholic Emancipation if he returned to office. In vain did ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... ladies' privilege—it would be very ungallant to deprive them of it. Besides, my trade is that of a critic, not an author: you must be aware that it is a higher branch, giving larger scope to my superior judgment and exquisite powers of fault-finding. Yes, criticism is my forte: do you tell stories, Ellen, and I'm the chap to ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... families are cast out of peace into grumbling and discord by being compelled to fight against poverty. When there are no great distresses to be endured or accounted for, complaint and fault-finding are not so often evoked. Keep your husband free from the annoyance of disappointed creditors, and he will be more apt to keep free from annoying you. To toil hard for bread, to fight the wolf from the door, to resist impatient creditors, to struggle against complaining pride at home, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... hours a day, doing extra night work, sometimes, of course. Her work over, she goes home or to her boarding-house, as the case may be. Her meals are prepared for her, she has no household cares upon her shoulders, no troublesome dinners to prepare for a fault-finding husband, no fretful children to try her patience, no petty bread and meat economies to adjust. She has her cares, her money-troubles, her debts, and her scrimpings, it is true, but they only make her independent, instead of reducing her ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... up there so stiff like a side of coarse leather. In fact, about him there's not one natural feather." Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch, The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch, Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic (Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic, And then fairly hooted, as if he should say, "Your learning's at fault this time, anyway; Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray. I'm an owl; you're another. Sir Critic, good day!" And ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... quitting the kitchen proceeded upstairs to his room, and first washing himself with unusual care for a boy of thirteen, put on a clean collar and brushed his hair. He was not going to provide a suspended master-mariner with any obvious reasons for fault-finding. While he was thus occupied the sitting-room bell rang, and Ann, answering it, left Mr. Wilks in the kitchen listening with some ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... appears on the scene, with his usual disposition to fault-finding. "The so-called chateau," he says (1685), "is built of wood, and is dry as a match. There is a place where with a bundle of straw it could be set on fire at any time,... some of the gates will not close, there is no watchtower, and no place to shoot ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine |
